In 2011 Christmas fell on a Sunday, and several churches canceled their church services because they didn’t want to interrupt Christmas. What a bizarre idea—not wanting to impose the worship of Jesus Christ on the day we celebrate His birth!

The New Apostolic Reformation—led by Peter Wagner and other modern apostles—contends that we’re living in the second apostolic age of the church, in which they exert the same authority over the church as the New Testament apostles. But as we’ve seen over the last few weeks, these modern apostles aren’t even a shadow of their biblical forebears. In any examination of the biblical marks of a true apostle, these modern apostles routinely fall short.

Depending on whom you believe, there are perhaps thousands or even tens of thousands of apostles living and serving in the church today. Never mind that these modern apostles bear little resemblance to the men we read about in the New Testament. In fact, their teaching and their ministries are often radical departures from the apostolic work we see in Scripture.

Titles have meaning. They communicate authority and position, and they depend on the proper credentials. A person can’t simply call himself an army sergeant, a ship’s captain, or a medical doctor just because he likes the sound of the title. And he certainly can’t assume any legitimate authority by self-applying those titles. That is a sure path to confusion, chaos, and disaster.

Lots of people today claim to be apostles—to wield the same authority and power as the leaders of the New Testament church. To properly evaluate those claims, we’re looking at the biblical requirements for apostleship and measuring the credentials of these modern apostles against those of the men the Lord used to found and establish His church.